What Others Are Saying

For a nation that loves and honors its military, there is no way to justify what sometimes happens once the uniform is off.

Whether the problem is military sexual assaults, physical and mental health problems, unconscionable delays in awarding benefits due or denying benefits for trumped-up reasons, our nation is engaged in an undeclared war against its veterans.

Missouri's U.S. Sens. Roy Blunt and Claire McCaskill are waging a bipartisan effort against the U.S. military complex itself to help secure better treatment for military sexual assault survivors. While it won't cure all the problems facing military personnel and veterans, it may help this one unconscionable problem.

McCaskill, a Democrat, and Blunt, a Republican, introduced legislation to amend Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to help prevent abusive treatment of sexual assault survivors in a pre-trial setting.

While Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and McCaskill are allies on this bill, they have taken different tacks on another aspect of military justice.

McCaskill supports legislation to strip commanders of the ability to overturn jury verdicts and mandate dishonorable discharges or dismissals, but to keep control of courts-martial within the military chain of command. Gillibrand wants to take prosecution of sexual assault cases outside the chain of command and to allow military prosecutors, not accusers' commanders, to decide which cases to try.

"Everyone who's looked at the Article 32 process agreed that it's unnecessarily harsh for survivors and that it has become an overly broad tool that has expanded its original function," McCaskill, a former sex crimes prosecutor for Jackson County, said in a statement.

Sexual assault in the military is a problem that the Pentagon had been dealing with, not always aggressively, for years. Efforts to get more people to report assaults and to reduce the fear of retaliation have met with mixed success.

On the plus side, more cases are being reported. The downside is that some of the cases that have been publicized depict an environment in which it seemingly is permissible to sexually assault women.

The Kansas City Star, Nov. 13

Governors and key players in Kansas and Missouri agree that the economic "border war" is destructive and needs to end.

But not all of the players are on the same page, or even clear about what the others are doing.

Fissures emerged this week when Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon gave a speech at a Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce luncheon. He called for governors of both states to immediately declare a moratorium on using incentives under their control to recruit companies to merely move across the state line. That should be followed up by legislative action to make the moratoriums permanent, Nixon said.

His focus on the border war is well targeted. As Nixon observed, the wooing of companies to move just a few miles from one state to another drains money and adds no new jobs to the region as a whole.

Within minutes, though, Republicans in the Missouri legislature were accusing Nixon of trying to seize control of state incentive programs and undermine their efforts to resolve the issue.

The Kansas secretary of commerce expressed surprise that Nixon had gone public with a proposal in the midst of ongoing talks. A Nixon administration staffer indicated the governor had become frustrated with the pace of the talks in Kansas.

The upside to the squabbling is that officials feel strongly - even proprietary - about arriving at a solution. They need to get together, and the sooner the better.

Nixon must design a strategy along with Republican lawmakers. Missouri leaders will have trouble forging a truce with Kansas if they're feuding among themselves.

GOP accusations that Nixon is attempting a power grab are misplaced. The governor was calling for a moratorium on incentives currently under his control, not for acquiring new ones.

But Republican lawmakers have settled on a good strategy that Nixon should not undercut. They are proposing to waive automatic tax benefits that Missouri makes available to qualifying new businesses if the jobs are coming from the Kansas side of the metropolitan area.

Nixon may have jumped the gun, but he did spark some urgency among the various players - if only to argue with the governor. It would be great if that momentum could be employed toward a swift resolution to the border war.

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What Others Are Saying

For a nation that loves and honors its military, there is no way to justify what sometimes happens once the uniform is off.